Mr. Bernard O'Regan:

Mr. Higgins will talk about the brokerage. On Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, I will come back to the Senator in terms of the numbers. We are involved in work at the moment to look at how we will allocate the new development moneys for 2024 across the CHOs. In our analysis of that across a number of headings, including PA, there is variation. Some of it has to do with legacy decisions that might have been made going back as far as the days of the health boards when different priorities were set. Then there is the legacy of how services have evolved. One of the things that we are trying to do is achieve a balance by using population information to help us to apportion the new developments that we get in order to try to raise the boat a little. We will not be able to do that in any one year and fix a problem, but we are intent on trying to level things up and match it to the population base as much as possible. Also, it would be easy at one level to, using PA as an example, look at it, say there is one area that is so disadvantaged in comparison with others and put all the money into it for next year and level it off. Given the needs in other areas, it cannot be done in one go. It has to be done over a number of years in order to ensure that we do not solve one problem and inadvertently create another elsewhere.